The Final Swallow
by Secre
Summary: When the odds turn against Seneca Crane he has only one option left. How does he come to terms with that. Oneshot. (T for safety)


I have the blood of children on my hands. I have pitted mere children against fire, mutated beasts, poison, frost and more than anything each other. I have watched children die and I have smiled. I have planned these deaths and rejoiced when they came about. I have lived for the cheers of the crowd at the entertainment I control with the merest touch of my fingertips. In my hands the fate of hundreds of young lives rested and I have not felt guilty. That was my job, my livelihood, my life. I am Seneca Crane and the odds are always in my favour. Or they were. Until tonight. And now the crimes I have committed lie heavily on my shoulders, the blood falls from my fingers and I can see the young lives I have ruined.

Funny that. As long as the odds were in my favour, I never thought of the lives of those I have killed and destroyed. I never thought of the families with grieving parents and heartbroken siblings. I saw the glory and the fame, I saw the show, I saw the roaring crowd and the acclaim for being one of the best at what I do. I never looked beyond that to see the terrified faces of the children from poorer districts where Tribute is synonymous with corpse. I refused to see the hopeless fear and the knowledge that they would never see their loved ones again. I could not allow myself to see them as victims. They were chosen and they were part of my game.

But the odds have turned and now I find myself having to acknowledge my own mortality. I have to face the prospect of my own death in the bowl of berries in front of me. I will not die as a jeering crowd watches in anticipation. I will not be torn apart by mutated monstrosities created for someone else's enjoyment. I will die quickly and quietly. That knowledge doesn't help much. At least the Tributes are mourned by their family and acknowledged by the world. I will be forgotten, a Gamesmaster without a name. My disgrace will not be widely known nor my fate. I will simply disappear without a trace.

When did I start to see the Tributes as children rather than game pieces? Certainly not whilst I was clamouring up the ranks to get my position. Not during my first Hunger Games when I watched twenty-three young lives snuffed out in front of me with no remorse or pity. Not my second Hunger Games where I grew better at orchestrating the more spectacular deaths. Not even that last Hunger Games, at least not at first. I had a job to do and I could do it well. So what was the defining moment? I don't know if there was one. But I know the first sparks were born when the District 11 Tribute died. Not immediately. At first I simply congratulated me on two deaths in such a brilliant fashion, but as I watched something unexpected happened.

A Tribute mourned the loss of another and she did more than that. The District 12 Tribute, that Katniss Everdeen, mourned and then did what no one would ever have expected. She paid tribute to the life that had just been lost. She decorated the body with flowers and weaved those coloured flowers into the youngsters hair. She didn't rejoice in the death of an opponent, she mourned the death of a friend and something stirred as I watched her. There was no violence left in that tiny girls body, there was no blood-thirsty spectacle to be cheered. It had been replaced with the body of a child far too young to die. A child who looked so peaceful that she could have been sleeping.

I didn't let it distract me from my task of course, I tried to forget it but somehow the image of that child was burned into my mind. Her name meant something to me, Rue, the Tribute who was more than just a game piece. Her life had been important, her death perhaps even more so. And then District 11 repaid the debt by sending a gift; mere bread it might have been but still, it was unheard of. Katniss had stirred something in more than just my being. Her actions were respected. And then we came to the end of it all when I removed all hope from the two last standing contenders, that last minute announcement that the star-crossed lovers would have to fight to the death after all. The world stood rapt and I was amazed at my own genius.

Had it been for the boy, things would have gone my way and I would not be standing here now. He offered himself as sacrifice and stood waiting for the death blow. He would have been remembered as a martyr and her as the surviving champion. That is the way it should have been. But the girl turned everything on its head with those berries, the same berries that confront me now. She made the choice that she would prefer to die together than live alone and it forced my hand. I couldn't not have a champion, it would be unthinkable. Better to have two than none. But perhaps it did more than just force my hand. Her actions once again stirred that sensation as I looked on two children forced into such a violent and adult world, two children who made the unmistakable steps towards killing themselves.

There was honour in that attempted sacrifice. There was a dignity and sense of self rarely seen in the games. There was compassion in her wreathe of flowers. And there was so much love in their actions. It was like something out of a fantasy tale; the one refuses to live without the other. And it was so…childish. It was undoubtedly a two fingered salute to the Capitol. Two children turning to the adults and saying 'we have it our way or nothing'. It was rebellion, but not in the way that President Snow saw it. They didn't want to inspire rebellion, they simply refused to be pieces in my game. They refused to play. They changed the rules.

I can't feel angry at them. I pity them what will come next, but I can't blame them. They are children and we thrust them into an untenable situation. Few adults would manage to come through with so much of their dignity left unscathed. Perhaps I should thank them. For it was by their actions that I saw my own crimes, it was by their actions that I saw the children.

I don't expect forgiveness for what I have done, no apology I could give would ever be enough. I cannot even find peace, the families of the dead and the living haunt me. The face of that child covered in flowers. I deserve my fate.

That doesn't make bringing those berries to my lips and swallowing any easier. A single tear escapes and runs down my face as I hold them in my mouth.

And swallow.


End file.
